couple of questions

[[B]attery]

ok i bought a reciever off of ebay, an onkyo ht-r520, and now i'm considering speakers. to help me decide on which speakers i want i need to know how much power i'm going to be using per channel. the system is going to be 5.1 and i know the reciever is 130wpc. what i don't understand is amps. i don't understand the difference between bridgeable and non-bridgeable. do amps add their rated wpc to the reciever's wpc? is it only a percentage of the power? what difference will a bridgeable amp make? sorry about sounding like a retard. i've spent the last 2 nights researching equipment and talking to a friend who sorta knows what he's talking about, but couldn't answer all my questions. i was thinking that if the power combined, i'd by a couple onkyo m282's and i'd be getting 235wpc in to 8ohms and so i was looking at the JBL E100's. if they don't add their power or they only add a percentage of it then i'd look for something cheaper.

 

[Nomo]

I don't believe that reciever has pre-outs. A requirement for using a power amp.
Secondly, the M282 is not a bridgable amp. It's 100 wpc (or whatever) is what you get. You can drive two speakers with 100 watts of power each. Not the 100 +100 = ~175 watts a bridgable amp will deliver when it's outputs are combined.
I would not be overly concerned with what speakers that receiver can handle, but you plan on playing it loud, stay away from 4 ohm or low efficiency speakers.

 

[racquetman]

It sounds like it is too late, but a better way to approach this is to start with the speakers. Once you have found the speakers that you want, that should give you a better idea of how much power you will need to drive them and then you can start looking at receivers/preamps and amps.

In my experience I would also say try and keep it simple. The more complicated you try and make your setup, the more frustrated and less enjoyable it will probably be (especially if you don't know exactly what you're doing). A good receiver will do the job for you, no need to start bridging or biamping or whatever to try and get more power. Remember that doubling the power only gives you a 3 dB increase in output.

 

[BMXTRIX]

I believe that you need to slow things down a bit and get out of your muscle car, and look for the best quality you can afford.

1. Speakers are the heart of the system. A cheap A/V receiver with cheap speakers sound poor - no matter what. A cheap receiver with decent speakers can sound really good. I experienced this first hand when I disconnected my HTIB speakers from a $300 Kenwood setup and replaced them with a few grand in Definitive Technology speakers. The actual volume doubled - at least.

2. Your A/V receiver already has power inside of it. You can't add to it by putting another amp in-line, and odds are good that you don't need it anyway. If you have good speakers, you will have solid performance from that receiver.

3. If you want more power, you have speakers that are poor and inefficient, and can handle more power, then adding an external amp is fine, but you must your line level outputs from the A/V receiver to the amplifier. Look at the photos of the back of an amp and you will see that they only have RCA inputs or (sometimes) balanced audio inputs. Not speaker level inputs.

In all this, you still have to consider how good you want the audio to sound. Loud is easy and cheap - give me an air horn. Pleasant and loud is expensive. Pleasant and 'reasonable' is not terribly expensive and is a excellent way to go.

Now get back in your muscle car and drive awa... ooops - it just broke down again.

 

[[B]attery]

well, i got a really good deal on this reciever, so i couldn't pass it up. i guess i'll tone it back for now. i want loud, but i don't want to sacrafice any more quality then whats absolutely necessary. so could you guys reccomend speakers that'd be of a good value for this reciever. i had orignally not wanted to go over 1500 dollars in speakers and amps. but i've reconsidered and am thinking that i don't want to go over 1000. this is kinda of a project stereo for me, everytime i get enough money for the next step i buy what i can. i guess floor standing speakers are out of the question, but i really don't think i needed them in the first place. also to consider is that my friend has offered to sell me his JBL N24's (4), JBL Ncenter II, and stands for them all for 300 bucks. the reviews i read on those paticular ones said that midrange was pretty muddy. i'd still need a subwoofer too.

*edit*

http://www.etronics.com/product.asp?stk_code=yamns555&svbname=303

150 bucks for them? 600 bucks. + a matching center and a subwoofer. what do you guys think about them?